Why the Apple Aesthetic needs to be egalitarian and accessible
An aesthetic is not just a visual look of something. It runs much deeper. It involves all your senses and is how you experience the world. It’s totality of all interactions, all experiences. Past, present future.
Apple does not exisit in a vacume even if people so badly want it too. No amount of products you own or obsessed you are about them will make it so. Even for other companies, Google often swaps the lead as the most valuable company, other tech giants and newbies jockey for position. But it is a trendsetter, not just in technology but in it's overall aesthetic and what it stands for. We are all impacted on some level. Either we are part of their universe by product ownership or we are impacted by missing out by financial inaccessibility.
This weekend was the launch of the new flagship Apple store in San Francisco. Although just a fairly small part of Apple it is highly symbolic, a very tangible representation. What can we learn about the design and general aesthetic, how it speaks to us?
What might it show that is open and closed about the design? Aesthetics shows us small tangible clues to a deeper larger meaning.
It’s easy to compare say Apple and Google into open or closed companies just by looking at the dominate systems they create iOS and Android. Apple is notoriously a closed company in the way it operates. Google in 2009 effectively re-positioned Apple as a strategy to fightback Apples dominance. Apple’s counter-offensive was to say it’s really a matter of “fragmented versus integrated”. How does this contribute to the aesthetic?
Open, more then any other word open describes the free flowing energy of the space. Inside there are 42 foot ceilings with glass doors the entire height, these can be opened to expose the whole front of the building. Opening up to the square before it and open to the smaller courtyard behind. Glass steps give the impression is of a floating stage in the center of the space in dialogue with union square, establishing a living room for the city.
Lots of greenery, flowing water and historic artwork by a San Franciscan legend.
Let the people have good vibes…
What is closed about the aesthetic of apple is the accessibility.
It’s not a democratic company in that it’s products are shut off to probably 90% of the population.
If you think it’s expensive in America then other countries are even more so. I live here in Brazil and it’s almost ten times the price. They are the most valuable company in the world, profit margins are around the 40% mark. They are the ultimate status symbol, the aspirational brand. The aesthetic is one of progression, forward thinking but certainly not democratic. This impacts the aesthetic.
They have gone to big lengths to improve their green credentials and be the company that does good. It’s a trend setter for other companies to lift their standard. With the working conditions exposed in key supplier Foxconns factory they really moved the needle for the industry to improve conditions of it’s workers. In this sense they have far greater influence for doing good, not directly but indirectly pulling the whole industry in a better more humane direction. They do this with their design in general. The App store created a standard in how we consume information and create applications. Their user experience drives the entire global design standard. Tim Cook states that they are an Experience company. Companies now look to experience design as a key differentiator.
Apple wants to be seen to be doing good
There is a big push to employ more woman in the company. Tim Cook was one of the first top CEO so announce his sexuality, helping other business leaders to do so. They have always been the computers of choice for designers and symbolise the explosion in creative industries using computers. The iPad is also aimed at helping people create. The new digital pencil also reenforces this approach. In this way they are also leaders influencing how people create, leading other companies to do the same.
Apples aesthetic unifies all the smaller things they do into one universal purpose. Establishing their top hierarchy of importance and solidifying their entire reason for existence. Open, transparency with information but protecting yours as in the recent FBI case.
It’s always instructive to notice the smallest of details in reading what a company stands for. A man wearing a kilt featured in the new store shot.
He’s an attendant, showing his individuality and wearing the company shirt at the same time. A duality that’s not unlike how they want to be seen with you. Apple is the platform to let you create. To be who you want to be and tell the world about it, just not if you are poor and live in a fever in Rio, Brazil. Although it’s actions will influence the industry with flow down effects in years to come.
It impacts all of use when we see this huge disparity in wealth and accessibility.
The Apple aesthetic is so in your face that people cringe at what another side it can’t help but represent, one of being inaccessible.
As a status symbol it shows I’ve made it, I can afford great design and be at the digital forefront. Their stores show a majesty of design, a view of a future aesthetic. As with it’s new Head office, in Cupertino apple HQ like a giant UFO visiting earth.
It will be an architectural masterpiece but so far from other peoples reality. What kind of message does it send for someone who lives in a slum, it might be a ridiculous statement but it can't help not being connected to these people, however 3rd world it might be. You can argue that they are successful in business so they’ve certainly earned the right to do what they want with the money, even if it is so visible. Sure, but that does not change it’s global aesthetic. All part of a bigger picture that represents us all. It does reenforce what Apple stands for.
Is that what brands are supposed to do?
Give us something to believe in, do they drive humanity forward? making the promise that a better future exists in this perfect apple aesthetic.
If we own a product or spend time in the store then we somehow are jointly a part of it.
A controlled aesthetic of the digital future, connection, harmony, balance, and what people globally recognise as beauty, there is truth in beauty. All in this one little device.
You don’t have to go to Rio to see how someone else reality is. The new store in San Francisco in Union square you just have to walk two block to see a different world, The area of the Tenderloin seems like you’ve landed in very different version of the city, it’s like a parallel universe. One that people are suffering and forgotten.
No matter how well a brand designs itself — or how much money it has sitting in the bank ($200billion?) — and it’s aesthetic it can’t be cut off from everyone. We are all together on this planet so their aesthetic is impacted by this in how we all individually perceive a brand.
It's no wonder the re-positioning of the company is represented in the building being framed as a manifestation of the company’s mission to remain “egalitarian and accessible.” So even if you can’t afford the $750 iPhone 6s, Apple’s futuristic flagship offers an art-filled plaza that’s open to the public 24 hours a day, will even have artist come and demonstrate for free. Maybe some artists from the Tenderloin can join in.
